GOD-SEEKING

God-seeking thou hast journeyed far and nigh. 
On dawn-lit mountain-tops thy soul did yearn
To hear His trailing garments wander by;
And where ’mid thunderous glooms great sunsets burn,
Vainly thou sought’st His shadow on sea and sky;
Or gazing up, at noontide, could’st discern
Only a neutral heaven’s indifferent eye
And countenance austerely taciturn.

Yet whom thou soughtest I have found at last;
Neither where tempest dims the world below
Nor where the westering daylight reels aghast
In conflagrations of red overthrow: 
But where this virgin brooklet silvers past,
And yellowing either bank the king-cups blow.

SKYFARING

Drifting through vacant spaces vast of sleep,
One overtook me like a flying star
And whirled me onward in his glistering car. 
From shade to shade the winged steeds did leap,
And clomb the midnight like a mountain-steep;
Till that vague world where men and women are,
Ev’n as a rushlight down the gulfs afar,
Paled and went out, upswallowed of the deep.

Then I to that ethereal charioteer: 
“O whither through the vastness are we bound? 
O bear me back to yonder blinded sphere!”
Therewith I heard the ends of night resound;
And, wakened by ten thousand echoes, found
That far-off planet lying all-too near.